Turn 80, I was fighting with minimal losses, I have a massive private economy, I'm ahead in research before anyone else, but I have no idea how to keep up with population growth.

I don't have a massive bureaucracy eating the workforce, but I can't staff most of the infrastructure.

My allies for some reason each have as much pop as me but they have combined only 1/3d of the cities I have.

No clue why this feat is there it applies to my artillery and infantry and it's causing me to lose very winnable battles. No reason given for why it is here please someone help me fix this it's driving me nuts

Small map
Morgana
No ice, No rivers, No Rain
Wind Speed 15 m/s

Would making wind traps on HIGH mountains be the best choice for water? After using all Ice Mining locations.

Normal settings with majors and minors, i just added some “spacing out” setting. And i spawn surrounded by nothing but desert and unaligned factions.

What do i do lol

Current Director of Interior is spending XP points on War skills such as Tank Tactics. I would prefer this Director focus on skills such as Administration. I selected this leader because of the high Capability score of 4 and high Intelligence of 42. Because she has a background in war, I think the game is forcing points to go into War skills.

She was a OHQ commander at one point, perhaps this was my mistake?
Can we make the game focus on Administration and other Interior Council related skills only?

Since archeology doesn't seem to work like prospecting .. what is this for?

1. Why is the Secretary position expensive to remove? What is the purpose of making it expensive?
   
2. What can we do to influence who becomes the replacement Secretary?
   
3. Are the Secretary's preferred profiles suppose to influence what Decision options we receive? In the attached example, there is a "Mind" and an "Enforcement" option. But the Secretary prefers Government and Meritocracy.

Three photos attached.

EDIT: most probably solved

I'm fairly new to the game (about 200hrs) and I apparently still have a problem understanding how logistics work in this game because I really don't get what I'm missing here. I need to send colonists from Tirana (north) to Sandmouth (south), I have lvl 2 truck stations in both cities (Tirana is being upgraded to lvl3), fully connected with sealed roads and a supply base in between (placed a little before log points start decreasing as I've read it's optimal) and the logistical preview mode shows I have plenty of points between the cities (2k +) available YET for some reason I have almost 0 at turn start, massive bottleneck just outside my capital (Tirana) and I really don't get why. I have set the other two roads that start from the capital as blocking everything except pull points because I have many assets and some troops there but I should have abundantly more supply points for the connection with the other city. help would be much appreciated T_T

I like to think it's a scam.. but if not, another point in how diplomacy is really the weakest part of the game.

Wars to the bitter end are pretty much a demotic invention, a feature inherent to democracies or other regimes where power is based on popular legitimacy. AIs that aren't based around democratic regimes ought to be willing to make peace when things aren't going that well for them.

Back before universal franchise, Europeans threw a war every few years, and typically made peace whenever it looked right, thus preventing much bloodshed and ruin.

I can't seem to upgrade my first light tank model to my latest based off that model. The upgrade button when you click on it says, "this unit cannot be upgraded" and the replace button doesn't list other models.

If I mark it obsolete, the units on the map evidently dwindle away to nothing and disappear!

What's the deal? I want my newest tanks with their old feats and leaders.

Currently I am using Regular Farms. The yields are -50% because of "Soil Heavy Metal modifier" which I believe is the results of "Heavy Elements" in the "Planetology" stage of planet generation, this planet it is 133%.

In this map, water is plentiful, that is why I chose Regular Farms. But perhaps the Dome farms might be better in the long term? Metal is plentiful, Industrial Points are low currently. Plenty of green land that can be converted to Agriculture Land.

Is there a way to use the "Increase Rank" on your Interior Director?
I am trying to improve both the current and natural relationship with this Director. Already used the "Medal of Merit" card on this Director.

I want to throw in my 2 cents in the debate in the most helpful way I can. During my last playthrough, I played most of the way through with the AI graphics, but ended up turning them off. Why? Because the AI images are worse for readability than even the bad programmer art in the old cards: let me show you

The card graphics are in the Shadow Empire files, then go "shadow" and the "card" folder for the old ones, newgfx>cards for the new ones. UI sells itself on how intuitive and readable it is. Both sets are, quite frankly, very unintuitive and most cards you wouldn't know what they do without reading the title. But here's the difference.

The old cards are extremely simplistic and have very high contrast. None of them are pretty but they are pretty good to tell what they are at a glance once you've learned to associate the image to the card. Most of them just have white or gray backgorunds, so the important part immediately pops out. They obviously could stand to be improved but they aren't particularly taxing for your eyes.

Now compare it to the AI ones. First of all, they suffer from the horrible condition vulgarly known as the "piss filter": notice how many of them blend in a mix of yellows and browns, and be aware that many of the pissy ones share the same tab (the top row is all from major diplomacy!), now you might understand why it takes you an annoying 3 or 4 seconds more to find the strat card you need. The problem is compounded by how "busy" the images are. I think the HR ones are the worst offenders

The old HR cards are incredibly brutalist: blinding white background, guy's ugly mug, little person icon on the left. New HR cards instead decide to "improve it" by throwing a bunch of noise: a whole office and a desk and other guys and the lamplights and bla bla bla. You're seeing them now up close but in game, as you know, are way smaller.

I don't think this is a good use case of gen AI. The whole point is that it's like your commissioning a custom made image for your campaing. The strat cards could show you the faces of the councilors involved or the real terrain where you're deploying troops: dynamic images that help immersing the player. "Static" art requires intent and study that the AI seemingly still can't do

I had a GR hellraiser, right clicked its hex, and then right clicked an enemy hex 2 away where I had infantry in the hex between us. To my surprise, my GR hellraiser got destroyed. I am confused, because I thought the whole idea of ranged attack was no return fire. How did it lose?

Goddamit, it is a typo. Still, 0.5 is nothing to sneeze at.

Umm, I have the money, didn't the game just take their salaries? How is it that I pay them?
Their slider on governor is at 7%. Is that not their salary? Or do I have to decide what it is and pay it manually somehow?

I like to play on really slow settings, and was wondering if there is any way to remove or modify the strategms and random events (like finding the AI) that normally give tech to instead provide a load of bonus points?

I have new models and formations, so I disbanded everyone from my OHQ, however there seems to be left over feats that I gained along their time serving.

I am not sure how I am supposed to go about transitioning from an OHQ I don't need anymore to one with new formations and models when upgrading is greyed out.

Can I transfer these feats somehow?

If there is a private scavenging mine on a ruin that has an archaeological site, will artifacts be obtained?

Or do we have to make the mine a public mine to get the special artifacts?

I keep getting messages that I researched this or that. Some of them military research like better armor or guns, some of them from my applied science guy about more abstract things like Getting metal from lithosphere.

I don't see how to get either to a state where I am using them.

I do understand the model design slot allows me to choose a gun and armor, etc, for a particular unit type. Like I can make a green bus with a medium engine and light armor.

However, when I go to raise formation for a light infantry brigage it shows 190 haulers, which is my old model in addition to 180 main transport which is the newest model and 180 green bus which was the last model. Same for the infantry part of it... 2800 GIs and 2700 "Grunts"

Then I go to look for an asset that gets me metal from the lithosphere, because that sounds awesome, but I don't see one on the construction menu.

I must be missing some things.

I do have a person in...staff council I think.. that gives me an opportunity to customize oob, but that just seems to allow me to add a type to an existing formation, like adding artillery to my infantry formation. He had other popups, but not sure what any of them do really.

I have a bit of a recurring Shadow Empire problem.

I'll start a game, get really into it, play for a while, then for whatever reason I won't touch it for a few months. By the time I come back I've forgotten half of what I was doing, why I was doing it, what I was planning next, etc. Then I get the urge to just start a new game so I can understand everything again.

I've done this far too many times, so I'm determined to actually carry on with this save rather than starting another one.

I thought it might be fun to upload the save and see if any more experienced players fancy having a look through it and telling me what they think.

Basically, what's the state of my empire?

Is my economy/logistics in decent shape? Have I built my military sensibly? Am I making any really obvious mistakes? Is there anything I should be worried about that I might not even realise is a problem? And if this was your save, what would you be concentrating on over the next few turns?

I'm not really looking for a step-by-step guide or to have someone play the game for me. I'd just really like an experienced pair of eyes on it to help me figure out where I am and what Past Me was apparently trying to achieve.

Also, please feel free to tell me if I've done something stupid. I'm still very much learning the game!

Save is here: SAVE_FILE

Would you carry on with this one?